Zara Alam paints with a vivid brush, to create a heightened stylised world, and uses symbolism that is not only beautiful, but which also explores the latent psychology and internal landscape of her characters. While poetically evocative, and resonating with collective ideas and feelings, her prose still then tells a tale of love, spies, beauty and hope. Luc drives into a deserted London during a prolonged heatwave, to start a new life and leave the past behind. But his childhood friends have secrets here that span generations, and his new home and governmental occupation boast unsettling opulence and power, while his new neighbour, Mer, a woman who will not open herself to him, has him as though under a spell... During an intense, crisis ridden summer, Luc strives to unravel the secrets about him, and so, tries to help his friends whose lives are under threat, and yet, all the while he wishes that he could find his way to the new and untroubled life he sought in the first place, by falling in love with Mer.
Amyr Klink, whose sailing exploits have made him a hero in Brazil, tells of his daring singlehanded circumnavigation below the Antarctic Convergence. Surfing the waves in his custom-built 50-foot "aluminum red truck," PARATII, Klink enjoys the quiet confidence that comes from proper planning, common-sense technology, and a lifelong fascination with the history of Southern Ocean sailing. A modern Moitessier, sailing before an Aerorig mast, Klink proves his seamanship handling tricky boat repairs while underway, navigating icebergs, negotiating gales and williwaws, and surfing gigantic waves.
On the world of Dematr, the Emperor and his legions rule over the lands on the eastern side of the Sea of Bakre, and the Great Guilds rule over the Emperor and his subjects. The Mechanics Guild, whose members claim they came from the stars, controls technology far beyond that of the swords and sailing ships of the common people, while the Mage Guild wields strange powers that terrify all who face them. Jules, an orphan from the Imperial city of Landfall, has fought her way up to become an officer in training with the Emperor’s fleet. But her plans and her life are shattered when a Mage prophesizes that a daughter of her line will one day overthrow the Great Guilds and free the world. In that moment, the prophecy takes over her life. The Mages plot to kill her, the Mechanics try to find ways to use her, and the Emperor seeks to coerce her into having his children. Unwilling to surrender her life to serving the prophecy, Jules makes her escape by joining the crew of a pirate ship. As she fights for her comrades’ freedom as well as her own, she learns that the world is finally changing. But if that change triggers all-out war between the Great Guilds and the Empire, it may well devastate the world rather than free it.
Now captain of her own pirate ship, Jules of Landfall faces ambushes by Mage assassins and threats from Mechanics who can’t decide whether to kill her or try to use her for their own ends. The Emperor has made her an offer he doesn’t think she can refuse, but Jules wants nothing to do with that gilded cage. Now, the Emperor’s forces are redoubling their efforts to capture her. The free ships of the pirates have never gathered around any single leader, but when the Mechanics seek to limit the power of the Empire, Jules realizes it offers her a means to grow the strength of the free people escaping the Emperor’s grasp. Gaining access to the strange Mechanic weapons known as “revolvers”, she marshals her forces in an unprecedented attempt to capture an Imperial settlement. Ultimately, Jules must play the three greatest powers in the world against each other, in a desperate gambit to survive.
An inspiring, revelatory exploration of the genesis and impact of the fabled Elephant 6 collective and the baffling exodus of its larger-than-life luminary, Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum Years after its release, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea remains one of the most beloved and best-selling albums in all of indie music, hailed as a classic so influential as to be almost synonymous with the ongoing vinyl revival. But despite its outsized impact, a question looms even larger: why did frontman Jeff Mangum, just as the record propelled him to the brink of music superstardom, choose instead to disappear entirely? The mystery has perplexed listeners for decades—until now. In barely two years, Neutral Milk Hotel rose from house show obscurity in Athens, Georgia, to widespread hype and critical acclaim, selling out rock clubs across the country and gracing the tops of numerous year-end best-of lists. But just as his band was reaching the escape velocity necessary to ascend from indie rock success to mainstream superstar, Mangum hit the eject button. After the 1998 release of Aeroplane and a worldwide tour to support it, Mangum stopped playing shows, releasing new music, or even doing interviews. He never explained why, not even to his friends or colleagues, but thanks to both the strength of Aeroplane and his vexing decision to walk away from rock stardom, Neutral Milk Hotel’s impact only grew from there. In Endless Endless, Adam Clair finds the answer to indie rock’s biggest mystery, which turns out to be much more complicated and fascinating than the myths or popular speculation would have you believe. To understand Mangum and Neutral Milk Hotel and Aeroplane requires a deep dive into the unconventional inner workings of the mercurial collective from which they emerged, the legendary Elephant 6 Recording Company. Endless Endless details the rise and fall of this radical music scene, the lives and relationships of the artists involved and the colossal influence that still radiates from it, centered around the collective’s accidental figurehead, one of the most idolized and misunderstood artists in the world, presenting Mangum and his collaborators in vividly human detail and shining a light into the secret world of these extraordinary and aggressively bizarre artists. Endless Endless offers unprecedented access to this notoriously mysterious collective, featuring more than 100 new interviews and dozens of forgotten old ones, along with never-before-seen photos, answering questions that have persisted for decades while also provoking new ones. In this deeply researched account, Endless Endless examines not just how the Elephant 6 came to be so much more than the sum of its parts, but how community can foster art—and how art can build community.
He had been living in the dream for a thousand years. He had come out of a dark forest called Death's End, so how could he, who knew nothing about this world, walk from an ignorant youth to the peak of the world? What exactly happened in the middle?
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of The Night Circus, a timeless love story set in a secret underground world—a place of pirates, painters, lovers, liars, and ships that sail upon a starless sea. Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues—a bee, a key, and a sword—that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth. What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians—it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose—in both the mysterious book and in his own life.
The beloved author of The Bookshop on the Corner returns with a sparkling, sunny, soulful new novel perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand. Years ago, Flora fled the quiet Scottish island where she grew up -- and she hasn't looked back. What would she have done on Mure? It's a place where everyone has known her all her life, where no one will let her forget the past. In bright, bustling London, she can be anonymous, ambitious... and hopelessly in love with her boss. But when fate brings Flora back to the island, she's suddenly swept once more into life with her brothers -- all strapping, loud, and seemingly incapable of basic housework -- and her father. Yet even amid the chaos of their reunion, Flora discovers a passion for cooking -- and find herself restoring dusty little pink-fronted shop on the harbour: a café by the sea. But with the seasons changing, Flora must come to terms with past mistakes -- and work out exactly where her future lies... Funny and heartfelt, The Café by the Sea is a delightful summertime novel that puts a modern twist on the classic Seven Brides for Seven Brothers story.
A graphic novel memoir recounting one parent's unique and wrenching journey caring for a child with a terminal diagnosis When Rick and Emily's infant son Ronan is diagnosed with Tay-Sachs, an incurable neurological disorder, they are faced with the practical and emotional hurdles of parenting and loving their son—despite the shadow of inevitable loss. Rick Louis narrates this original graphic memoir, with illustrator Lara Antal translating the space that Ronan occupies before, during, and after his life, using flights of fancy and imagination to express the bizarre, heartbreaking, and sometimes even silly reality of human beings suddenly trapped in an impossible situation. Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars is a graphic memoir for fans of Liana Finck's Passing for Human and Tom Hart's Rosalie Lightning, which was a Goodreads Choice Award semifinalist, Amazon Best Book of 2016, on the Washington Post's Best Graphic Novels of 2016 list, and one of Publishers Weekly's 100 Best Books of 2016. Ronan and the Endless Sea of Stars is a story of warmth and of heartbreak—about finding joy in life, no matter how long or short that life might be.
